The information network known as the world-wide-web (WWW), which is a subset of the well-known Internet, is arguably the most complete source of publicly accessible information available. Anyone with a suitable Internet appliance such as a personal computer with a standard Internet connection may access (go on-line) and navigate to information pages (termed web pages) stored on Internet-connected servers for the purpose of gathering information and initiating transactions with hosts of such servers and pages.
Often times, in order to improve the quality of services offered by a particular website, it is important to understand user activity in relationship to that site. This is to say that while a user is navigating through a website, obtaining a dynamic profile of the user's habits, activities and personal information would prove beneficial to the overall improvement of a service providing or commercial website. In addition to utilizing user profiles for website service-enhancement purposes, companies routinely pay for such information in order to better target users for advertising and marketing purposes.
In a cobrand relationship known to the inventor, cobrand partners contract with a service-providing entity in order to provide Internet services offered by the entity. The cobranded services are made available to subscribers of the cobrand partners through dedicated servers maintained by the service-providing entity. Users who subscribe to such services typically have at least some personal profile information known to the cobrand partners through their normal subscription and interaction activities. In addition, a service-providing entity may track certain information about users who are accessing and interacting with cobranded services maintained by the service-providing entity. For example, information such as types of products purchased, types of web pages accessed at service sites, frequency of buying, time spent at sites, and so on, may be tracked and stored in a secure database by the service-providing entity. This is made possible by the fact that the service-providing entity maintains and provides the services and the equipment through which the services are made available.
There are a variety of known methods for obtaining information about individual users who visit websites online. Some commonly known methods are sending and retrieving interactive cookies, conducting on-line surveys, parsing completed online forms, recording purchase histories, and many other techniques. A typical user profile automatically compiled by a Web company is limited to information that can be obtained from the user while at one of the company-sponsored sites, or through interacting with the user during registration processes. As such, the profile is not complete or well rounded and tends to reflect content related to the nature of business conducted by the Web company. For example, a purchase history compiled by a Web-based clothing retailer is limited to the subject of clothing. In order to obtain a well-rounded profile of an individual that covers a variety of topics, information must be bought, sold, or traded between Web companies doing business on the Internet. It is known in the art that there are many companies in existence that specialize in information brokering. In the case of cobranding, where the service-providing entity provides proxy navigation and data summary services for users, data about a user's activity related to interaction with cobrand services includes data related to a plurality of disparate Web-sites, which are involved in some aspect of the cobrand services. It has occurred to the inventor that much information may be automatically obtained about users from user interaction and proxy interaction with many Web sites without being required to obtain the data through purchase or trade with companies hosting Web-sites involved in cobranded services.
A system known to the inventor and taught in the related document listed in the cross-reference enables automated collection of data about a user through monitoring user interaction on the network. The data-collection system includes a proxy server connected to the data-packet-network for providing proxy services and for monitoring user access and interaction with those services, a dedicated server interface connected to the network for providing user access to the proxy services, and a software application running on the proxy server for collecting and storing data obtained as a result of active user-interaction with the proxy services. In preferred embodiments of the invention, the data is collected in an automated fashion and is used for the construction of multifaceted user profiles, which may be periodically updated in an automated fashion as a result of continued user interaction with provided proxy services through the dedicated server interface.
The system also incorporates manual techniques used in data collection and integrates results obtained manually with those obtained in an automated fashion to compile detailed profiles of individual users. One of the uses of a complete and detailed profile on a user is to incorporate the compiled information for use in advertising as is generally known in the art. However, in an automated network environment ads must be delivered into user-operated interfaces as accessed web pages are loaded. In current art, ads delivered according to profiling, either text or graphic, are more or less static in that they do not change in content to the extent that a user may change in personal habits, preferences, or other profiled attributes. These ads are decided on based on an overall picture of a user or a group of users. Therefore, they are not really as flexible or target-oriented as might be desired by both users and advertising companies.
It has occurred to the inventors that through further innovation and refinement, an automated profiling system may be adapted to define a user's profile in such a way as to incorporate slight changes in content, categories, and preferences as they are discovered. However, in order to cause ads to be delivered such that they incorporate evolving changes, a system must be developed to communicate the mean of those changes in a way that may be utilized on the fly as Web pages delivered into a user interface are loaded.
What is clearly needed is a system for packaging and communicating profile data to ad sources such that dynamic ads may be selected and delivered based on mean changes in the profile data. Such a system would provide a much greater degree of compliance of delivered ads to a user's preferences and status states enabling a greater hit rate and a greater profit margin for ad companies.